You're right, payouts overall are down, not only due to the increase in members, but also due to the steem price being down. This is something we all have to go through and I'm sure better days will come again (once the 1st of august is behind us).

What annoys me sometimes though (and why I had to let my frustration out in this post) is that it seems as though newbies get a pass and manage to sometimes gain hunderds for a very simplistic post. This might be seen as 'supporting the new guy', but I feel it's a bit like a middle finger to the older minnows. That, and this new guy will not be new later on and won't get the same perks, so he'll just go down in rewards, get disappointed and leave.

Steemit has never felt completely fair, but sometimes, I feel it's a bit less fair than usual, like in this case. It's just very frustrating sometimes when you try to be fair in your support for others, but it feels like many others don't show the same consideration. And yes, that is why, like I said, I sometimes upvote my comments. Not so much as to drain my own VP, but simply to try and counteract all the lost votes that go to newbies for being new.

Besides that, I still try to support most people I follow. Old or new, minnow or whale. Atleast as much as my overly full Home feed lets me :-)